The access to information divide: Breaking down barriers Bas Savenije Director General KB, National...

The access to information divide: Breaking down barriers

Bas SavenijeDirector GeneralKB, National Library of the Netherlands

Stellenbosch Symposium / IFLA Presidential meeting18-19 February 2010

Koninklijke Bibliotheek – National Library of the Netherlands

The Access to Information Divide

Overview

Improving Access to Scholarly information

Pitfalls and possible solutions




Within a country

• Licenses for privilaged groups/organisations

Universities, research institutes

• The have-nots

Health care institutions, patient organisations, vocational schools, individuals

Interlibrary loan for journal articles is inefficient




Between countries

• Big Deals: for many hardly affordable

• Pricing policy:

Per institution: based on former print subscription

Per country: national licenses ? Few examples



The HINARI program

• Set up by WHO with major publishers

• Free or at very low cost: Access to biomedical and health literature

• GNI per capita below $ 1250

• www.who.int/hinari



The eIFL.net program

• Assists in building sustainable national library consortia:

Training, national and regional workshops, individual country visits, grants

• www.eifl.net/cps/sections/about



Why is there little improvement?

“What we need is a new business model”

BUT• New models imply new dynamics• This implies uncertainty• Publishers want/need sustainability• Plus: economic crisis



Open Access

Open Access information

• Is freely available for the reader

• May be re-used by the reader



2 Scenario’s for Open Access

• Golden Road

Open Access Journals: free for the reader

• Green Road

Open archives (repositories) with publications:

Institutional, Discipline, Personal




• Golden Road




Open Access journals: who pays?

• Publication fee / Article processing costs• Peer review fee / submission fee• Institutional membership• Institutional sponsorship• Sponsorships, grants• Advertisements



The hybrid model

Example: Springer Open Choice

When the publication is accepted for a traditional journal, the author may pay $ 3.000 for Open Access

Springer will lower subscription prices accordingly




• Golden Road


• Green Road

Open archives (repositories) with publications:

Institutional, Discipline, Personal



Why publish Open Access?

• More visibility• More downloads• More citations• More impact

In an Open Access Journaland/orin a repository



Some good news: the Houghton reports

The Houghton reportsAustralia, UK, the NetherlandsApparent savings within the system Apparent profits by more use

http://www.surffoundation.nl/en/publicaties/



If every scientific and scholarly article were publicly available, it would save the Netherlands EUR 133 million a year.



Some bad news: why not faster?

• Complications with OA journals



Complications with OA journals

• Additional costs for universities

Principle: the system is already expensive as it is

Practical: budgets are tied in Big Deals

• Starting problems for new journals

Risk avoiding: Authors choose for traditional journals

Conservatism: Impact and assessment systems





• New dynamics



What about dynamics?

• More competition

the reader cannot choose, the author can

competition generally implies: lower prices

• Publishers

uncertainty about their turn-over (and profits!)

• Countries

Costs may increase for knowledge intensive countries

• Universities

Costs may depend of institutional profile





• New dynamics

• Getting from A to B



Getting from A to B

• (Temporary) strategic investments

By universities: Open Access Funds

By research funders: Wellcome Trust

• New assessment procedures

Impact models: international initiatives (e.g. Los Alamos)

Assessment measures: national initiatives





• New dynamics


• Limited progress with repositories



Institutional repositories: complications

• Difficulties in convincing authors

• Obstacles by publishers: copyright

• Limited use of the content





• New dynamics


• Limited progress with repositories

So:

What we need is small steps and small scale experiments



Steps to be taken: Inside out

• Making research output available:

Institutional repositories

Subject repositories

• Mandate for the deposit

• Easy workflow for the authors



Steps to be taken: Outside in

• Experiments with hybrid models

• Increase the use of OA publications



Experiment with hybrid systems

Open Choice: pilot in the Netherlands

• Every Dutch publication in Springer Journals is OA

• Evaluation: commitment for OA, # articles, # citations



Experiment with hybrid systems

Open Choice: pilot in the Netherlands

• Every Dutch publication in Springer Journals is OA

• Evaluation: commitment for OA, # articles, # citations

Follow up could be:

• Extend the consortium: more countries

• Extend the scope for the authors: more publishers

• Limit uncertainty: freeze university budgets

• Analyze the consequences:

at least some insights about the dynamics



Increase of use of OA publications

• Creation of subject repositories

Improvement of metadata

• Information infrastructure

Embedding of international repositories

Access denied? Go to the OA version!

It should be ONE click away!



Conclusion: the role for university libraries

• Setting up Institutional Repositories

• Promote the deposit

• Easy workflow

• Take care of the metadata

• Additional services for authors (# downloads, personal homepage)

• Additional services with IR

• Promotion of new copyright licenses



Conclusion: the role for national libraries

• Strive towards national licenses

Steps: - digital document delivery

- pay per view

at a fair price

“How much money can a publisher get from a country?”

• Integrate OA publications in the (inter)national infrastructure


Innovating Scholarly Communication

“When everything is under control, you’re driving too slow.” Mario Andretti



Thank you !

[email protected]

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